


Kiss of Death

by Subatlove



Series: Cursed Love [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Series, detective Tim, sad clark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-04-29 13:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14473959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Subatlove/pseuds/Subatlove
Summary: Continuation of Pearls......





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I’m still working on this story. Surprise!  
> Enjoy :3

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Where am I?” He doesn’t respond and only chuckles sending shivers up my spine.

 

I clench my fists trying to control my anger and close my eyes slowly, take a deep breath and calm myself down. Opening my eyes, I then cross my arms over my chest defiantly and quirk an eyebrow. I continue to wait for him to answer me but he’s not budging. 

 

“You honestly have no idea where you are, do you?” The hooded man finally says with an incredulous huff. 

 

“I have an idea, but I don’t want to jump to conclusions, now do I?” I snarl. 

 

He chuckles again and gestures to the large room, “Take a look around and tell me where you think you are.” 

 

I hesitate for a second but can’t stop my eyes from roaming the dark room and eventually landing on the tall columns of glowing orbs. The room itself would be pitch black if the millions of spheres weren’t littering the walls acting as a dim light source. 

 

There is a giant pile of glowing orbs underneath the black cloaked man who holds a great scythe with a skeletal hand. His hood covers his face as well, and all I can do is assume it matches his hand. 

 

The orbs have to be either some glass globes with a few lights or possibly some sort of magic that’s giving them their multi-colored hues. They’re strangely mesmerizing. Each orb has a different flow and movement of colors making them seem like they're alive. 

 

“Beautiful aren’t they?” he whispers in my ear, startling me. “Why don’t you just touch one?” I don’t move and instead, glare at his throne of orbs or whatever they are.

 

“They are quite beautiful, but I can perfectly observe their beauty from here,” I respond stepping forward away from him. 

 

“Pity. Oh well, have you figured out where you are finally?”, He walks around me till I’m face to face with him. Only he has no face. Instead, I’m greeted by a skeletal smile and a pair of dark pits that stare into me making my skin crawl.

 

“I have a good idea,” I respond to the giant grinning skeleton.

 

He laughs. “Welcome to hell.”

 

I swallow dryly as I begin to process these words. Hell? But that would have to mean I’m…I…. No. I could have been caught in a spell. It’s happened plenty of times before, only I never been to ‘Hell’ before. 

 

“Why am I here? What is it you want?” 

 

“Funny. I actually put in a special request to get you here in my presence. Though I wasn't expecting you so soon, but I'm not complaining.” He begins to walk back to his throne, slowly turns around and finally sits down. 

 

“You know, for the World’s Greatest Detective you seem slow. But I get it, we all have bad days and today just so happens to be one of those. Though hopefully, I can change that for you.”

 

“Okay. Before you try to talk business with me, tell me who you are and why you put in a “special request” to get me here?” I'm starting to lose my patience and would like to go home and take a long well-deserved shower. 

 

I’m still in my suit which is torn, and the Bat symbol is carved out leaving my bloodied chest bare. Lovely. I turn to look around the room once more, and a weird sticky feeling in the center of my back makes me shift uncomfortably, I can only guess its blood from a deep gash oozing down my back. I don’t feel any pain or numbness which is strange. 

 

My suit is definitely ruined, Alfred will be thrilled. Yet another one to throw away.

 

The skeletal man leans back comfortably as he watches me and props his chin on his hand. “I am Death. No, I'm not being overdramatic. And no, you cannot hold my scythe.” I quirk my eyebrow hearing that. “Don't ask. Plenty of humans have asked it before.” He says waving the thought away. “Now. For the reason you’re here. You have, obviously, died and I wish to make a deal with you.” So that marks off the idea it was magic.

I turn away from him and cross my arms in thought, “What kind of deal are we talking about?” 

 

A feral grin spreads across his bony features. “The kind of deal where you work for me and get to not rot in a pit for all eternity.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed this chapter!  
> <3


	2. Chapter 2

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

 

“Tim! Timothy! Get back in here right this instant!” Tim continues walking down the hallway away from his class and shouting teacher. Mrs. Silen had stopped yelling at him and has begun to follow him out of Gotham Prep Middle School’s main building to the locked front gates. 

 

“Timothy, you come here when I call you!” she scolds from a distance. Stopping at the gate he turns and looks at her with a sad stare making her furrowed brow soften.

 

She sighs gently and looks down at the child. “Tim, I know what you’re going through must be hard on you and your family, but that’s no excuse for you to get up and run out of class like that.”

 

Tim is just staring at her waiting for some sort of punishment for running out of class and ignoring his teacher, but no punishment or scolding is given. She just looks at him with a melancholy expression and then straightens her shoulders. 

 

“Come on, hun. Let's go back to the class and continue the lesson.” The older lady turns away and starts walking towards the entrance to the hallways. 

 

She begins to chuckle to herself, “Where were you planning on running, Tim? Honestly, what did you think? A 12-year-old boy like you could hop over an 8-foot gate? Hah!”

 

Tim hears her and smirks slightly to himself and decides to do just that. Tossing his backpack over the gate he jumps up and climbs over landing with a silent thump on the grass. 

 

Mrs. Silen reaches the steps and turns to find Tim on the opposite side of the gate, smirking. She swears he was just behind her a second ago. Tim picks up his backpack and slings it over his shoulder and begins to walk down the street. 

 

“Timothy Wayne! You are to be expelled for this!” She booms from the school yard. 

 

*~*~*~*~

 

Everyone has their own ways to cope with a thing like loss or the death of someone they love. Tim’s way was simple to him, to others not so much. Most would say what he’s doing is unhealthy and morbid. Staying up till the sun is already peaking over Gotham Bay, functioning on nothing but a few hours of sleep he caught while curled up in Bruce’s oversized chair surrounded by 12 cups of coffee laying on the floor of the cave.

 

There is a reason why he’s been sitting in the cave day in and day out, studying Bruce’s last case files and recordings like they’re the key to the universe. But Alfred doesn’t care, so he sent him back to school today only for him to ditch and head downtown to Bruce and his favorite coffee shop.

The waitress, Jillyen, who used to serve them regularly, derails his train of thought when she places Tim’s coffee down, making him jump from the clank of the glass being set on the wood table.

“Sorry, sweetie. Didn’t mean to startle you.” She says sympathetically. “I brought you a fresh cinnamon roll too. On the house.” Smiling, she places the roll on the table gently and ruffles his hair.

 

Tired, he smiles “Thanks, Jill. I might be here a while.” Jillyen has always been so nice to him and Bruce whenever they came here, always giving Tim sweets and not hitting on Bruce like most of the other waiters and waitresses did. 

 

“Whatcha working on there?” Tim drags one of his pieces of homework over the top of a file. “Oh nothing, just some homework.”

 

She laughs lightly and shakes her head. “Don’t think I’ve ever met a kid who does their homework while ditching school. But you can stay as long as you want, Hun.”

 

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*


	3. Chapter 3

“Did you see that? Please tell me you saw it.”

Clark’s eyes widened seeing the hooded man with Bruce's face. He rewound the security footage, again and again, making sure his mind wasn't playing tricks on him as Tim intensely stared at Clark's head, waiting for him to say something. “Well?!” He poked impatiently. 

Spinning to face him, Clark looked like the gears in his mind have stopped turning. He finally looked Tim in the eyes and gave a small, uncertain smile. “I saw it. Where was the last known location or spotting of this person?” Tim’s face beamed, and he turned back to the computer screen and showed Clark the most recent entries. 

“First sighting of him was in Cairo, Egypt 4 months ago, then in LA, California a week later, a few spottings around the US and some in Gotham. But the most recent recording was in Cairo a few days ago.” Tim states, “See, we have an “extra” cave, so to say- more like a home away from home you know- in Egypt to keep gear and anything we might need while over in that vicinity. I believe that if it really is Bruce, then he’s been staying or living in that building for about 4 months, since he first popped up.”

Could it be him?

Clark looks at the screen willing it to just tell him. “But wait. Wouldn’t the cave have been alerted of any activity taking place?” 

Tim frowns slightly, but then it’s taken over by a toothy grin. “Yes, it would have! Unless, it was disabled, or the alert was scrambled, and there are only three people who know how to do that. Me, Alfred and Bruce.”

Clark takes in all the information the child gives him and leans back slowly till he’s slouching in Bruce’s chair. The possibility of Bruce being alive bounced around in his mind; he wants to jump up in the air and scream “It’s him! My Bruce! It has to be!”, but he makes no move and stares at the screen. 

“Clark?” Tim asks uncertainly.

A fond smile takes ahold of Clark’s face as he turns towards the young boy. Clark ruffles his hair a bit and snorts as the little bird tries to push it back down. “So…. Egypt?”

Tim jumps up and bounds over to the Batplane. “Let’s go!”, he goes to grab ahold of the cloth cover, but is stopped short when he’s lifted off the ground suddenly and is carried out into the warm sunlight.

“No need for a plane when you’ve got Superman, Robin.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“This the place?” Superman asks as he hovers in front of a small mountain of sand in the middle of the desert.

He gets a slight nod of approval from his small companion and begins to make his way down to the sandy ground. Slowly the sand parts and begins to open; a large landing pad greets them. Superman steps down onto the sand surface and waits for it to carry them down into the cave.

“It looks like the landing pad hasn’t been activated in 5 months. That’s strange. How did they get in and out of the cave then? And the first sighting of him was 2 months ago.” Tim looks around the cave uncertainly then back at the tablet in his hand. “Well, let’s just keep looking around for anything useful, okay?”

Clark nods and moves further into the room; its lights bloom to life, and the cave buzzes as it’s revived. A computerized Alfred voice breaks through the cave making them both stop, “Access not authorized, activating security protocol-” Tim cuts it off quickly, “Access code S and code R-3.”

It’s quiet for a few seconds then responds, “Welcome Superman and Robin.”

Tim walks to the monitor and sits down in the too big chair, “Hmm. Let’s start here. Computer, when were you last active?” 

Its response was quick and automatic, “The system was activated: 1:04:29 am, 7 hours, 45 minutes and 11 seconds ago.”

“That soon? Then someone’s been here within the past 24 hours! Computer, list this past months activity log.” The log was active almost every-single-day. 

“Past 2 months?” 

“Active.”

“3 Months.”

“Active.”

“5 months!” he demanded. Finally, the log wasn’t consistent but started activity entries halfway through the 5th month. “Show me the past 2 days of security footage.”

The computer doesn’t respond and the screen stutters for a second, “I am unable to do that.”

Tim sits puzzled for a few seconds, thinking with a hand on his chin much like Bruce does when he’s in thought. “That’s strange. Analyze systems and report changes within the last 6 months and show me the last recording.”, he finally says.

“Security cameras: disabled. Audio recording devices: disabled. Latest recording available has been manually deleted, the only available footage is dated October 19th, 2010.”, it responds. 

“2010?! That’s 8 years ago!” He throws his hands up and looks at Clark. 

“So obviously this person knows what they’re doing,” Clark states.

Light footsteps fill Clark's ears making him stand up out of awareness. He looks down at the masked child and expands his hearing searching throughout the man-made cave, only hearing the easy thumping of Tim’s heart. “Tim. I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

“But Clark! The log!” Tim said flabbergasted. 

Clark waved him off, “I know, I know. I'm going to go look around; you keep up all the detectiving alright?”

Tim sighed and rolled his eyes at him, “I don’t think ‘detectiving’ is a word, Clark.”

“Sure it is, you and Bruce do it all the time-” Clark stopped realizing what he just said and looked back at Tim. “Tim, I-”

“It’s okay, Clark. I sometimes forget too.”

Clark nods and smiles tightly before turning and moving towards the area he heard the footsteps come from.


End file.
